Young Adult – Page 31 – Jill's Book Blog

Review: The Ravens (The Ravens #1)

Title: The Ravens (The Ravens #1)
Author: Kass Morgan, Danielle Paige
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Fantasy
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Source: Beacon Book Box
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: November 3, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Kappa Rho Nu isn’t your average sorority. Their parties are notorious. Their fundraisers are known for being Westerly College’s most elaborate affairs. But beneath the veil of Greek life and prestige, the sisters of Kappu Rho Nu share a secret: they’re a coven of witches. For Vivi Deveraux, being one of Kappa Rho Nu’s Ravens means getting a chance to redefine herself. For Scarlett Winters, a bonafide Raven and daughter of a legacy Raven, pledge this year means living up to her mother’s impossible expectations of becoming Kappa Rho Nu’s next president. Scarlett knows she’d be the perfect candidate — that is, if she didn’t have one human-sized skeleton in her closet…. When Vivi and Scarlett are paired as big and little for initiation, they find themselves sinking into the sinister world of blood oaths and betrayals.

Review:

Kappa Rho Nu is a special sorority at Westerly College with a big secret. All of the members are witches. When Vivi moved to Westerly, she was excited to finally settle down in one place after moving around constantly with her mom her whole life. She’s drawn to the mystery of Kappa Rho Nu. Scarlett is a junior in the sorority this year. She has to do her best to prove that she can be the president next year. Vivi is paired with Scarlett to get to know the sorority, but their partnership is tested when the ghosts of their past show up.

I love stories about witches and stories set at schools, so this one was perfect for me! There was a mysterious history of the sorority, which included the mothers of some of the members who were part of the sorority when they went to the school. They were a secret society of witches, so it surprised the new girls when they found out what the sorority did. They also had a personal history of personal drama, which was revealed throughout the story.

The ending was so surprising. Anything can happen when witches are around, but I wasn’t expecting what happened. This was a great ending. I can’t wait to read the next one!

Review: All I Want for Christmas

Title: All I Want for Christmas
Author: Wendy Loggia
Genre: Young Adult, Romance
Publisher: Underlined
Source: Purchased
Format: Paperback
Release Date: November 3, 2020
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

This sweet and magical romance about a girl who has just one wish–someone to kiss under the mistletoe–is the perfect holiday escape!
Bailey Briggs is counting down the days to Christmas: she lives for holiday music, baking cookies, going on snowy sleigh rides, and wearing her light-up reindeer ears to work at Winslow’s bookstore. But all she really wants this year is the one thing she doesn’t have: someone special to kiss under the mistletoe. And she’s 100 percent certain that that someone isn’t Jacob Marley–athlete, player, and of questionable taste in girlfriends–and that Charlie, the mysterious stranger with the British accent, is the romantic lead of her dreams. Is she right? This will be a December to remember, filled with real-life Christmas magic . . . and, if she stays on Santa’s nice list, a wish that just might come true.

Review:

All that Bailey Briggs wants for Christmas is a kiss under the mistletoe. Christmas is her favourite holiday, so she goes all out with baking, decorating, and shopping. One night, she meets Jacob, a boy from school, while she’s working at a bookstore. He doesn’t seem like her type but they start hanging out. Then she meets Charlie, a hot British guy, who seems to be exactly what she’s looking for. Jacob makes an effort to spend time with Bailey, but she thinks she’s meant to be with Charlie. Bailey has to figure out which guy will fulfill her Christmas wish.

This is a fun holiday romance. Bailey and her family love the holidays, so they have lots of Christmas traditions. There were some classic Christmas scenes, such as cookie decorating, going to a tree farm, and lots of shopping.

Even though Charlie seemed like the man of Bailey’s dreams, I found him creepy at first. He appeared just when Bailey needed help many times. Everything made sense in the end, though. It turned out to be a clever holiday story, even if it was a little cheesy at the end.

This is a great holiday story to put you in the Christmas spirit.

Review: Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares (Dash and Lily #1)

Title: Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares (Dash and Lily #1)
Author: Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Source: Library
Format: Ebook
Release Date: October 26, 2010
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

16-year-old Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on her favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. Dash, in a bad mood during the holidays, happens to be the first guy to pick up the notebook and rise to its challenges.
What follows is a whirlwind romance as Dash and Lily trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations all across New York City. But can their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions, or will their scavenger hunt end in a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions?
Co-written by Rachel Cohn (GINGERBREAD) and David Levithan, co-author of WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON with John Green (THE FAULT IN OUR STARS), DASH & LILY’S BOOK OF DARES is a love story that will have readers scouring bookstore shelves, looking and longing for a love (and a red notebook) of their own.

Review:

Lily, a sixteen-year-old girl in New York City, left a notebook with dares written inside it in The Strand bookstore. She was hoping that the right guy for her would find the notebook and complete the dares. Dash finds the notebook and starts the scavenger hunt around the bookstore to complete the dares. Then he sends the notebook back to her with his own dares inside. The notebook sends Dash and Lily around New York City over Christmas and eventually leads them to each other.

This story is a fun holiday book. Dash and Lily were brought together by chance, because Dash happened to find Lily’s notebook where it was hidden. As they progressed through the dares, it became obvious that they had a lot in common. They even almost crossed paths a few times before they actually met.

A bookstore romance is the dream for book lovers! This hunt around New York City would be so much fun, but I wouldn’t do some of the dares they had to do, which included going into crowded stores on Christmas Eve and going to a night club on Christmas night.

I loved how this was a romantic story, yet the characters didn’t even met in person for most of the story. There was a clear romance developing between Dash and Lily through their dares, but they were only communicating through the notebook. This made it even more special and unique, since they fell for each other without actually being physically together.

This was a fun story! I’m excited to watch the new Netflix adaptation.

Other books in the series:

The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily
Mind the Gap, Dash and Lily

Have you read Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares? What did you think of it?

Review: The Cousins

Title: The Cousins
Author: Karen M. McManus
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Contemporary
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Source: Publisher
Format: Paperback arc
Release Date: December 1, 2020
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of One of Us Is Lying comes your next obsession. You’ll never feel the same about family again.
Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah Story are cousins, but they barely know each another, and they’ve never even met their grandmother. Rich and reclusive, she disinherited their parents before they were born. So when they each receive a letter inviting them to work at her island resort for the summer, they’re surprised . . . and curious.
Their parents are all clear on one point–not going is not an option. This could be the opportunity to get back into Grandmother’s good graces. But when the cousins arrive on the island, it’s immediately clear that she has different plans for them. And the longer they stay, the more they realize how mysterious–and dark–their family’s past is.
The entire Story family has secrets. Whatever pulled them apart years ago isn’t over–and this summer, the cousins will learn everything.

Review:

Twenty-four years ago, Mildred Story disinherited each of her four children. She ended contact with them by sending a note that said, “I know what you did.” Now, her three grandchildren have received a letter inviting them to visit her island and work at her resort for the summer. Jonah, Milly, and Aubrey are unsure about going to meet this woman who cut her children out of her life, but their parents insist that they go. Soon after they arrive, they discover that there is a dark family secret that tore the Story family apart. The cousins won’t stop digging through their family’s past until they find out what really happened.

This story was built on secrets. Every character, even the minor characters, had secrets. Some of them were secret events in their pasts, while others were secret identities. These secrets didn’t necessarily put the characters in immediate danger, but they created suspense since all of the characters were hiding something.

This was a complicated story. There were three generations that were involved in the mystery of the story. It was a little confusing to keep track of everyone’s secrets by the end. One thing that made it even more complicated was that Mildred’s children had similar names starting with A: Adam, Allison, Anders, and Archer. I kept getting the three brothers mixed up, which slowed down my reading when I had to figure out which was which. This story would have been much easier to read if the names weren’t so similar.

This was a suspenseful mystery!

Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Fangirl, Vol. 1: The Manga

Title: Fangirl, Vol. 1: The Manga
Author: Sam Maggs, Rainbow Rowell, Gabi Nam (illustrator)
Genre: Manga, Young Adult
Publisher: VIZ Media
Source: Purchased
Format: Paperback
Release Date: October 13, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

The manga adaptation of the beloved novel by #1 Bestselling author Rainbow Rowell!
New York Journal of Books
Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, everybody is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life. Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath just can’t let go. Now that they’re in college, Cath must decide if she’s ready to start living her own life. But does she even want to if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?
Cath doesn’t need friends IRL. She has her twin sister, Wren, and she’s a popular fanfic writer in the Simon Snow community with thousands of fans online. But now that she’s in college, Cath is completely outside of her comfort zone. There are suddenly all these new people in her life. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming boyfriend, a writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome new writing partner … And she’s barely heard from Wren all semester!

Review:

Cath writes fanfiction for her favourite fantasy series about Simon Snow. When she goes to university, she brings her favourite Simon Snow memorabilia. Her twin sister also started at the same university, but she wants them to have some distance and meet new people at school. Cath misses her sister and she lives with a grumpy roommate. Her roommate doesn’t understand her obsession with Simon Snow and has a boyfriend who is always around. Cath starts to feel settled in her writing classes when she gets a writing partner. Though Cath loves writing fanfiction, she soon finds out that that kind of story won’t work in her creative writing class.

I loved Fangirl when I read the novel a few years ago. Anyone who has been involved in any kind of fandom can relate to Cath’s obsession with Simon Snow. She uses her Simon Snow fanfiction as a way to express herself. She even has a fan base of her own, with thousands of people reading each of her chapter updates.

This is a great adaptation. At the end of the book, it said that it was part one of four, so I’m hoping there will be three more parts in this series. Since this was a manga adaptation of Fangirl, it was almost like a kind of fanfiction, even though it’s an official adaptation.

I really enjoyed this manga!

Review: Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite

Title: Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite
Author: Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker (editors)
Genre: Young Adult, Short Stories, Fantasy
Publisher: Imprint
Source: Purchased
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: September 22, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Eleven fresh vampire stories from young adult fiction’s leading voices!
In this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out―and going out for their first kill―and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night.
Welcome to the evolution of the vampire―and a revolution on the page.
Vampires Never Get Old includes stories by authors both bestselling and acclaimed, including Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, and Kayla Whaley.

Review:

This is an amazing collection of modern vampire stories. Vampire stories have gone out of style in recent years, after the popularity of Twilight. People had said they had been overdone, but there are so many more vampire stories to tell. The white, heterosexual, privileged vampire story has been told many times, but this collection has a diverse range of characters, with queer and disabled characters from a variety of nationalities.

These stories were so original. I would have loved to see any of them turned into a full novel. They had rich settings and diverse characters. There was a Desi story and a Latinx story, and even a story about a vampire in a wheelchair. I’ve never read anything like these stories before, and I loved them! After each story, the editors wrote a paragraph about the vampire trope that was being flipped in the story. These sections showed how much thought went into each story and their placement in the collection.

Each story had a different origin story for vampires and different rules that vampires had to follow. In some, they couldn’t see their reflection in mirrors, while they couldn’t in others. Some vampires turned their victims into vampires against their will, and in others the victim had the choice to be turned into a vampire or not. There were also a couple of stories about vampire slayers, including First Kill by Victoria Schwab, which is being turned into a TV show.

This is one of my favourite books of 2020! I’ll definitely be recommending it for a long time.

Review: Heartstopper: Vol. 1

Title: Heartstopper: Vol. 1
Author: Alice Oseman
Genre: Graphic Novel, Young Adult, Romance, LGBT
Publisher: Graphix
Source: Library
Format: Ebook
Release Date: February 7, 2019
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Charlie, a highly-strung, openly gay over-thinker, and Nick, a cheerful, soft-hearted rugby player, meet at a British all-boys grammar school. Friendship blooms quickly, but could there be something more…?
Charlie Spring is in Year 10 at Truham Grammar School for Boys. The past year hasn’t been too great, but at least he’s not being bullied anymore. Nick Nelson is in Year 11 and on the school rugby team. He’s heard a little about Charlie – the kid who was outed last year and bullied for a few months – but he’s never had the opportunity to talk to him.
They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn’t think he has a chance. But love works in surprising ways, and sometimes good things are waiting just around the corner…

Review:

Charlie is an openly gay student at an all-boys school. He has a secret relationship with another boy at school, who is not openly gay. When the new school year begins, Charlie meets Nick, a boy who’s a year older than him. Charlie and Nick get closer and closer, with Charlie developing feelings for him. Charlie worries that he has a crush on a straight boy, but is Nick really straight?

This was such a sweet love story. There weren’t a lot of words on the pages, which let the actions speak for themselves. Their body language was shown in the illustrations, which told most of the story. My only critique of the illustrations is that Ben, the boy Charlie was with at the beginning of the story, and Nick looked alike. They were both tall, with blonde hair and a similar body structure. This shows that Charlie has a type, but it made it a little confusing to tell them apart at the beginning of the story.

There were scenes of bullying and a sexual assault. Charlie was bullied for being openly gay. He was even bullied by Ben, the boy he kissed at the beginning. For some reason, since Charlie was open with his sexuality, the other students thought they could treat him any way they wanted. These were disturbing and upsetting scenes, but they told an honest side to Charlie’s story.

I really enjoyed this graphic novel! I’m excited to read the next one.

Other books in the series:

Heartstopper: Vol. 2
Heartstopper: Vol. 3

Have you read Heartstopper: Vol. 1? What did you think of it?

Review: Majesty (American Royals #2)

Title: Majesty (American Royals #2)
Author: Katharine McGee
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Random House
Source: Purchased
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: September 1, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Is America ready for its first queen?
Power is intoxicating. Like first love, it can leave you breathless. Princess Beatrice was born with it. Princess Samantha was born with less. Some, like Nina Gonzalez, are pulled into it. And a few will claw their way in. Ahem, we’re looking at you Daphne Deighton.
As America adjusts to the idea of a queen on the throne, Beatrice grapples with everything she lost when she gained the ultimate crown. Samantha is busy living up to her “party princess” persona…and maybe adding a party prince by her side. Nina is trying to avoid the palace–and Prince Jefferson–at all costs. And a dangerous secret threatens to undo all of Daphne’s carefully laid “marry Prince Jefferson” plans.
A new reign has begun….

Review:

Princess Beatrice has become the first Queen in American history following the death of her father. She has to take a stand to prove that she will be a good Queen for the people. Her first task is to get married. Meanwhile, her sister and heir, Samantha, is making a splash as a party princess, which leads to an unexpected relationship. Their brother, Jefferson’s ex-girlfriends plot against each other to try to win him back. There was lots of drama and romance to start off Queen Beatrice’s reign.

American Royals was my favourite book of 2019. I was a little hesitant to read Majesty because I worried it wouldn’t live up to my expectations. I loved this sequel and I found it so inspiring. American Royals actually inspired my own writing, so I loved seeing the story continue in this sequel.

This story touched on so many important issues in the lives of royalty. Beatrice had to make a statement as a strong Queen, but she was ruled by the men in her life and told to submit to a marriage. The press was also an important part of their lives. Jeff’s girlfriends Daphne and Nina had to be careful with how they behaved because it could make front page news. Samantha did create a bit of a scandal by making a headline that affected her love life. They even had to deal with racial issues, when one character started dating a black man and that was commented on by the press. These were all contemporary issues that royalty has to deal with in real life, so it made the story feel more real.

This is an amazing sequel! I was happy with the ending, but I would also love to revisit these characters in more books.

Other books in the series:

American Royals

Have you read Majesty? What did you think of it?

Review: Swamp Thing: Twin Branches

Title: Swamp Thing: Twin Branches
Author: Maggie Stiefvater, Morgan Beem (illustrator)
Genre: Young Adult, Graphic Novel, Fantasy
Publisher: DC Comics
Source: Purchased
Format: Paperback
Release Date: October 13, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Twins Alec and Walker Holland have a reputation around town. One is quiet and the other is the life of any party, but they are inseparable. For their last summer before college, the two leave the city to live with their rural cousins, where they find that the swamp holds far darker depths than they could have imagined.
While Walker carves their names into the new social scene, Alec recedes into a summer school laboratory, because he brought something from home on their trip—it’s an experiment that will soon consume him. This season, both brothers must confront truths, ancient and familial, and as their lives diverge, tensions increase and dormant memories claw to the surface.

Review:

Alec and Walker Holland are twins with opposite personalities. Alec is quiet and introverted, but Walker is the life of the party. They take a trip to visit their cousins in the country for the summer before they start college. Walker wants to spend some quality time with his brother, but Alec wants to keep studying his plants that he brought along with them. He studies how plants store memories and emotions. On the first night, their cousins’ dogs are locked up in the garage where Alec’s plant experiments are being stored. The dogs eat the plants and chemicals, but it actually does more harm to the dogs than the experiments. The dogs transform into plant-dog hybrids. As the brothers slowly drift apart over that summer, Alec becomes more involved in his study of plant emotions.

This was the perfect graphic novel for Maggie Stiefvater to write. Her other books explore nature and plants, so writing about a character who studies and becomes a plant is a perfect match.

The plant emotions were displayed right on the page. If a character was connected to the plant, the emotions the plant was feeling would hover around them. The plants also stored memories of the things that happen around them, which revealed some secrets that the characters were hiding.

There was also great representation of diabetes. Alec was a diabetic, who had to check his blood sugar often. He had a sensor in his arm to check his blood sugar with his phone. The plants affected his blood sugar, so it played an important part in the plot as well. It was great to see this diabetes representation illustrated in the story.

I loved the fresh, green illustrations in this graphic novel. There were plants everywhere, including on the lockers in the school. Even if I didn’t notice the plants right away in the panel, the plant would give off emotions which showed that it was present in the story. Though Alec and Walker were twins, I could always tell them apart in the story. Sometimes, characters who are related are drawn so similarly that it’s difficult to tell them apart. Alec was always wearing green and had part of his head shaved, so he looked distinct from his brother. The expressions on their faces even reflected their personalities, with Alec looking very tense and Walker more relaxed.

This is a great graphic novel!

Review: As Kismet Would Have It (Dimple and Rishi #1.5)

Title: As Kismet Would Have It (Dimple and Rishi #1.5)
Author: Sandhya Menon
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Source: Purchased
Format: Ebook
Release Date: April 30, 2019
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Will Dimple and Rishi find their happily ever after? Find out in this funny, romantic, endlessly charming e-novella sequel to the New York Times bestseller When Dimple Met Rishi!
Dimple Shah has a lot of opinions about marriage, but they boil down to this: It’s not for her. Sure, she loves her boyfriend, Rishi, but why does she need to validate that with an institution that has historically never favored the woman? Why go through all that hassle?
Rishi Patel deeply disagrees. He believes in the power that comes with combining love and tradition, and when the time comes, wants nothing more than to honor those things in a huge celebration with his friends and family. He knows Dimple loves him, but in hearing her rant about how marriage is a “construct of hegemonic masculinity” for the millionth time, a small, niggling part of him worries that it’s not the institution of marriage Dimple has a problem with; maybe it’s him.
The two lovebirds find themselves at a philosophical impasse. Can they find a way to work it out, or does kismet have other plans?

Review:

Dimple and Rishi have been together for a year. Rishi is looking forward to getting married, but Dimple is hesitant. She loves Rishi but she doesn’t want to get married. They have a couple of conversations about marriage over the months, first at a jewelry store when they look at engagement rings and then at the wedding of one of Rishi’s relatives. It all ends with the same conclusion: Dimple doesn’t want to get married. This leads Rishi to wonder if she doesn’t want to marry anyone or if she just doesn’t want to marry Rishi.

I loved seeing the characters Dimple and Rishi again in this story. This story is set between the books When Dimple Met Rishi and There’s Something About Sweetie.

These characters were more mature than they were in their first book. This story ends a year after the first book, so they are in a different place in life. Rishi is thinking about his future, which he wants to begin by marrying Dimple. Young adult characters don’t often talk about their future adult lives, because they’re busy living in the present. This story showed young characters that were maturing into their adult lives.

This story is a must-read for fans of Dimple and Rishi!

Other books in the series:

Have you read As Kismet Would Have It? What did you think of it?

Goodreads Synopsis:

Review:

What to read next:

These Vengeful Hearts by Katherine Laurin

Lobizona by Romina Garber

Goodreads Synopsis:

Review:

What to read next:

New Year’s Kiss by Lee Matthews

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Goodreads Synopsis:

Review:

What to read next:

The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories by Stephanie Perkins (editor)

Other books in the series:

Goodreads Synopsis:

Review:

What to read next:

Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Goodreads Synopsis:

Review:

What to read next:

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Goodreads Synopsis:

Review:

What to read next:

Slasher Girls and Monster Boys by April Genevieve Tuchloke (editor)

His Hideous Heart by Dahlia Adler (editor)

Goodreads Synopsis:

Review:

What to read next:

Heartstopper: Vol. 2 by Alice Oseman

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell, Faith Erin Hicks (illustrator)

Other books in the series:

Goodreads Synopsis:

Review:

What to read next:

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Other books in the series:

Goodreads Synopsis:

Review:

What to read next:

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Teen Titans: Raven by Kami Garcia, Gabriel Picolo (illustrator)

Goodreads Synopsis:

Review:

What to read next:

There’s Something About Sweetie (Dimple and Rishi #2) by Sandhya Menon

Love at First Fight (Dimple and Rishi #2.5) by Sandhya Menon

Other books in the series: